


Bad Blood

by ariadnerue



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnerue/pseuds/ariadnerue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Laura has dreams about Elle and eventually learns some French.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Blood

Laura was in a stately old parlor, sitting on an elegant loveseat, warm afternoon light coming in through the tall windows. There was a grove of lime trees outside, and the whole scene was quite lovely, but her attention was entirely on the girl sitting on the loveseat beside her.

It was Carmilla, as beautiful as always, but younger, somehow. There was lightness in her eyes, ease in her smile. Her dark hair was in ringlets and she wore an elegant gown, and she took Laura’s hand in both of hers suddenly. She was blushing and staring at her with ardent, burning eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her breath. It was so unlike the Carmilla she knew, and yet somehow the same.

Carmilla reached forward desperately, winding her arms around Laura’s neck and pressing hot kisses across her cheek.

“You are mine, you _shall_ be mine,” she whispered, lips against Laura’s ear and a sob catching her throat. “You and I are one forever.”

* * *

 

Laura woke with a gasp. She didn’t move, lying frozen in the bed as she tried to make sense of her surroundings.

She wasn’t in an old house. She was in her room. In a bed. Carmilla’s bed.

Laura sighed in relief. Carmilla was at her side, fast asleep, her face in Laura’s hair and her arm slung carelessly across Laura’s stomach.

She was surprised her gasp hadn’t woken the vampire. She was a light sleeper, probably due to a combination of her nocturnal nature and her extraordinary hearing. And a few other things.

Laura briefly toyed with the idea of waking her, telling her about the dream she’d just had. It was odd and unfamiliar and it felt like no other dream she’d ever had. Like it didn’t belong to her.

But she let Carmilla sleep and closed her eyes. It never took her long to fall asleep when Carmilla was holding onto her.

* * *

 

It was a cool, dark evening. Laura was walking down a quiet path, a huge estate behind her and a road winding through the forest in front of her. The moonlight was fierce and she was deliciously warm, the feeling stemming from the girl at her side whose arm was tight around her waist. Laura’s arm was just as tight around hers. She looked over when the girl laid her head on her shoulder.

It was Carmilla, of course, ribbons in her hair and a luxurious dress fitted to her slight frame. She was smiling, a pretty blush on her cheeks and her eyelids drooping lazily. She looked almost drunk, intoxicated by the moonlight and the starlight and the loving embrace of the girl she walked with.

“How romantic you are, Carmilla,” Laura heard herself say, but her voice wasn’t hers. “Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance.”

Carmilla stopped in her tracks, lifting her head from Laura’s shoulder and giving her a smoldering look.

“I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love,” Laura continued, her unfamiliar voice dropping to a whisper. “That there is, at this moment, an affair of the heart going on.”

Carmilla smiled and leaned in, sweet lips pressing to Laura’s in a slow, silent kiss. When she pulled back, Laura was hot and trembling.

“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” Carmilla whispered, her voice low and sultry. “Unless it should be with you.”

Before Laura could react, Carmilla buried her face in Laura’s neck. She let out a shuddering breath, sounding almost as if she would cry. One of her hands pressed into Laura’s, fingers tangling together urgently.

Laura’s breath caught in her throat and her heart thundered in her chest. Carmilla lifted her head and pressed her cheek to Laura’s, hot breath on her ear.

“Darling, darling,” Carmilla murmured, lips ghosting over Laura’s skin. “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”

* * *

 

Laura woke up violently. She sat bolt upright in Carmilla’s bed, gasping and shaking like she’d just been drowning.

“Hey… Laura, hey,” Carmilla murmured, sitting up beside her and taking her heated face in her cool hands. “You’re okay, I’m right here.”

Laura blinked at her, swallowing hard. It had been a dream. Another dream. A dream that felt entirely too real and entirely not her own. Carmilla searched her eyes in the dark, concern furrowing her brow.

“Bad dream, cupcake?” she asked gently.

Laura looked down, embarrassed. Carmilla had real nightmares. Real, horrible things in her past to cause them. She woke up crying sometimes, screaming sometimes, terrifyingly silent sometimes. And Laura just held her close and kissed her fingertips and tried to bring her back to here and now.

This was just another odd dream.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Laura whispered. “It was just… a weird dream, I guess. Sorry I woke you.”

Carmilla tilted her head a bit, still studying her face as her thumbs gently stroked her cheekbones. But she eventually nodded, hands sliding down to Laura’s shoulders.

“Okay,” she acquiesced. She lied back down, the yellow pillow beneath her head, and tugged Laura down with her, down into her embrace. Laura curled up against her eagerly.

She was definitely okay being the little spoon tonight.

* * *

 

She was perched on the edge of a bed in an elegant old bedroom, Carmilla sitting up against the headboard in a pale blue nightdress and gazing at her fondly.

“Do you think that you will ever confide fully in me?” Laura asked in the voice she didn’t recognize. Carmilla’s smile turned a bit sad. “You won’t answer that?” Laura continued nervously. Then she shook her head, laughing a bit in embarrassment. “You can’t answer pleasantly; I ought not to have asked you.”

“You were quite right to ask me that, or anything,” Carmilla replied, frowning seriously. “You do not know how dear you are to me, or you could not think any confidence too great to look for.”

Laura felt her cheeks grow warm. Carmilla tore her gaze away, staring darkly at the end of her bed.

“But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully, and I dare not tell my story yet, even to you. The time is very near when you shall know everything,” she sighed, bright eyes turning back to Laura and holding her captive in her gaze. “You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know.” Her eyes were wild, her breath coming short as she grasped Laura’s hands in hers. “You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me. And _hating_ me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.”

“Now, Carmilla,” Laura heard herself say, her tone hasty and her heart beating rapidly. “You are going to talk your wild nonsense again.”

“Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies,” Carmilla laughed, lacing her fingers through Laura’s idly. “For your sake I'll talk like a sage. Were you ever at a ball?”

“No,” Laura sighed, rolling her eyes fondly at the change of topic. “How you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be.”

“I almost forget,” Carmilla murmured, lifting their intertwined hands to her lips and ghosting kisses over Laura’s knuckles. “It is years ago.”

“You are not so old,” Laura laughed breathlessly. “Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.”

“I remember everything about it… with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent,” Carmilla said, her voice low and her tone turning a bit dark. Her eyes drifted from Laura’s. “There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made its colors faint. I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here…” She reached up, tracing lazy fingers along her collar bone. Just above her heart. “And never was the same since.”

“Were you near dying?” Laura whispered, a hand over her mouth.

“Yes, very--a cruel love--strange love, that would have taken my life,” Carmilla said softly. She moved suddenly, lurching forward and taking Laura’s face in her hands, drawing her closer. Her eyes burned with passion and she blushed, lips brushing against Laura’s. Her words rang in Laura’s ears.

“Love will have its sacrifices.”

* * *

 

“Laura!”

Laura woke up with a strangled gasp. Carmilla was on top of her, knees on either side of her hips and hands firmly pinning her shoulders into the mattress. Her eyes were wide with concern, eyebrows drawn up in the most openly worried expression Laura could remember seeing on her.

“Carm?” Laura mumbled, confused. “What… what are you…”

Carmilla let out a relieved sigh and leaned down, resting her weight on her arms on either side of Laura’s head and pressing their foreheads together. Only then did Laura notice the sheen of sweat on her skin and the sheets tangled hopelessly around her legs.

“You had me worried there, sweetheart,” Carmilla whispered. Laura could hear her voice shaking despite her attempts to hide it with her usual careless tone.

“Worried?” Laura repeated, her voice cracking over the word.

Carmilla sighed again, nuzzling her face into the soft skin of Laura’s neck.

“You were thrashing around in your sleep,” the vampire murmured. “Pushed me right off the bed. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t afraid you’d hurt yourself.”

Carmilla shifted, moving off to Laura’s side and propping her head up on her elbow. Her gaze was warm and worried on Laura’s face.

“What’s going on?” Carmilla asked quietly. There was a careful tone to her voice. She cared, cared so much for Laura, but she clearly didn’t want to overstep. “You’re not having nightmares about the Light again, are you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Laura sighed. “Weird dreams, yeah, but not like… prophesy-of-doom kind of stuff.” She gave Carmilla a wry half-smile. “Dreams are supposed to be strange, right?”

Carmilla smiled, draping an arm across Laura’s waist and tugging her close. Laura bit her lip to keep from grinning like an idiot.

“If you’re sure nothing’s wrong…” Carmilla whispered, lips brushing Laura’s cheek as she spoke. She left the statement open, letting Laura pick up the thread if she wanted.

“I’m sure,” Laura sighed, wrapping her arms around her vampire and closing her eyes.

* * *

 

“You know who I am.”

Laura was in another old bedroom, different from the one in her previous dream. The girl in the bed was wearing a white nightdress, her blond hair in ringlets. She was pale and she looked a bit sickly, her eyes dark and sunken. Laura recognized her immediately.

“Elle,” she said simply, and her voice was her own. She was present in this dream.

“A nickname,” Elle acquiesced, shrugging her thin shoulders. “But yes.”

“I’ve been dreaming I was you,” Laura said slowly, eyes narrowing. Elle just nodded. “Those were memories. Your memories?”

“Perhaps,” Elle frowned. “Or they might be hers.”

“You mean Carmilla?”

Elle flinched at the sound of the name. Laura frowned at her.

“So am I just dreaming? Or are you actually speaking to me from like… beyond the grave or whatever?” she asked, frown remaining in place.

“That is hard to say,” Elle shrugged again. “I am not among the living, Laura Hollis. But I do not believe I am among the dead.” They sized each other up for a moment, both on the very edge of scowling. “I am here to deliver a… warning.”

“I know what you’re going to tell me and I don’t want to hear it,” Laura blurted. Elle’s eyes widened in surprise. Laura had been thinking a lot about Elle in the past few days dreaming about her, and the more she thought, the angrier she was. “I know she’s a vampire and I know she’s done a lot of awful stuff but she’s also done a lot of great stuff and she cares about me and I’d never call her a monster.” Laura paused, but the words started piling up in her head and she couldn’t stop herself for more than a moment. “She loved you. She loved you so much she still thinks of you after more than a hundred years, and she still blames herself for what happened to you, and she has nightmares now because you betrayed her, and she can’t stand small spaces and loud noises and sometimes she wakes up crying and she deserved so much better than you.”

Laura sat there panting, her face flushed from the righteous anger she’d just let spill out of her mouth. But to her great surprise, Elle wasn’t shocked. She wasn’t angry. She didn’t look like she’d been put in her place. She just looked sad.

“I know,” she sighed, and Laura just stared at her.

“What?” Laura asked blankly.

“You’re right, of course,” Elle continued, giving Laura a sad smile. “Being dead and trapped in a demonic Light for over a century gives one time to think about these things.”

“Oh,” was all Laura could think to say. She considered apologizing, but decided against it. She was right, after all. She fidgeted, embarrassed. “So then um… what were you going to warn me about?”

“Not to make my mistakes,” Elle sighed, her gaze on the end of her bed. “Being loved by Carmilla Karnstein leaves permanent marks.”

Laura’s fingers immediately went to the side of her neck where two pale scars marked the place where Carmilla once bit her. Elle laughed lightly.

“No, not there,” she said quietly. She pointed a small hand to Laura’s chest. “Your heart.” Laura felt her cheeks turn a bit pink and Elle looked down at her hands. “Carmilla loved me more than I could comprehend, more than I deserved. I thought her strange, merely… infatuated. I was a fool.” She sighed again, closing her eyes. “My final living memory is of her crying. It burned within my mind all those years I languished in the Light.”

Elle’s eyes snapped back to Laura’s.

“I was selfish,” Elle said firmly. “But you are different. You were brave where I was frightened. You faced her mother and the Light for her. And when I saw her, I…” She sighed again. “I reached for her. I made her cry again.” She smiled sadly. “But you don’t make her cry, do you?”

“I guess…” Laura began slowly, blushing. “I guess not… so far…”

“That is why she turned away from me,” Elle said, nodding to herself. “That is why she turned to you. She chose you, Laura Hollis. In my life I did not love her the way she loved me. But you do.”

Elle gazed at her, waiting for her to speak. Laura opened and closed her mouth several times but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I think I know why I am here in your dreams,” Elle said suddenly. She smiled at Laura. “You think she did it for me.” Laura stiffened and Elle shook her head. “She did it all for you, Laura Hollis. All of it.”

“You can just call me Laura,” Laura murmured after a long silence. Elle laughed again.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t.”

* * *

 

“…Dammit, Laura, wake up!”

Laura opened her eyes slowly. She would never get used to this. She blinked, confused, and looked around.

She was lying in Carmilla’s bed, as usual. Carmilla was at her side, as usual. But Carmilla was sitting back against the wall, Laura’s head in her lap as she ran gentle fingers through her hair. Morning sunlight was streaming into the room and Carmilla looked exhausted.

“Carm,” Laura murmured, and the vampire’s tired eyes snapped open. She took Laura’s face in her hands, eyes wide.

“Laura,” she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. “Laura, oh thank god…”

“Carm, what’s going on?” Laura asked, confused by how dry her throat was.

“You wouldn’t wake up,” Carmilla replied shakily, helping Laura sit up and then wrapping her arms tightly around her. “I’ve been trying to wake you for nearly an hour and you wouldn’t…” She sucked in a shuddering breath, burying her face in Laura’s hair. “I was about to call the Ginger Twins… I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” Laura murmured, pressing apologetic kisses to the vampire’s cheek.

“Don’t be sorry,” Carmilla said sharply, pulling back and looking Laura hard in the eyes. “Tell me what’s going on. This is the third night in a row you’ve had dreams or nightmares or… whatever it is that’s happening.”

Laura sighed and looked down, sliding her hands down Carmilla’s arms and feeling her shiver.

“Her name was Laura, wasn’t it?” she finally asked, and Carmilla flinched as though she’d hit her. “Elle was just a nickname. L. For Laura.”

“How…” Carmilla began, her voice tight. “How do you…”

“I’ve been having dreams where I’m… it’s like I’m in her body,” Laura said slowly, still refusing to meet Carmilla’s eyes. She tightened her grip on the vampire’s wrists nervously. “And I’m with you. And you… god, Carm, you loved her so much…”

“And that turned out so well for me in the end,” Carmilla sighed, an edge of snark finally reaching back into her voice.

“She spoke to me,” Laura continued, and Carmilla fell silent again. “Just now. Or… maybe she was my subconscious, or maybe… I don’t know, she’s a ghost, or…” She shook her head briskly and looked Carmilla in the eye. “She said… she said your love leaves permanent marks, and that she was selfish and I was brave, and that uh…”

“You don’t have to tell me what she said,” Carmilla said softly, and even in the dark Laura could see the nervousness in her eyes. “I’ve moved on, darling.”

“Well good,” Laura nodded. “Because I think that’s what she wants you to do.”

“I don’t care what she wants me to do,” Carmilla sighed, burying her nose in Laura’s hair. “I care what I want me to do. And what you want me to do. Sometimes.”

Laura laughed, pushing Carmilla back by her shoulders and sliding her hands up to either side of her face. Carmilla stared straight into her eyes, that intense look of hers that she was barely starting to get used to and always gave her a thrill.

“You really did it all for me, didn’t you?” Laura asked quietly.

Carmilla laughed and looked down. She shook her head, exasperated, and laced her fingers through Laura’s.

“You’re only figuring this out now, Sherlock?”

Laura rolled her eyes and kissed the smirk off of her. She couldn’t help but laugh into Carmilla’s mouth nearly every time they kissed. It was a ridiculous habit, but she always had to laugh because it was Carmilla and it was her and it was _them._

“So do you want to tell me how exactly Elle ended up in my dreams?” Laura asked breathlessly when Carmilla’s lips eventually left hers. The vampire stiffened at the question.

“It may be my fault,” Carmilla admitted grudgingly. Laura met her eyes curiously. Carmilla huffed a bit and buried her face in Laura’s neck, embarrassed. “When I bit you. I sort of… marked you.” She felt Laura’s pulse pick up nervously and winced. “Look, Will could have come back, and vampires are constitutionally incapable of sharing, so I bit you and nobody else could after that, okay?”

“We’ll have to talk about that later,” Laura muttered, a smile tugging at her lips, but Carmilla’s face was still pressed against her neck so she didn’t see it.

“The dreams could have carried over from me,” Carmilla went on uncomfortably. “It’s called ‘folie a sang.’ Madness shared by blood.”

“Madness? My blood caused you madness?”

“No no, it’s… it’s an old phrase. For the dreams. You know, like when twins have the same dream, ‘folie a deux.’”

“…I love it when you speak French.”

“Seriously, cupcake?”

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo heeey, new fandom. This is always terrifying.
> 
> I read Carmilla a couple years ago, and then last month I stumbled upon this web series, and I binge watched it and got hooked, and I had this theory in my head that Elle was the Laura from the original novel. And then I wrote this weeks ago, but all the writers in this fandom are crazy talented, so I was too nervous to post this, and then they released the first part of the interview with Annie Briggs and Jordan Hall, and Jordan said the series was like a distant sequel to the original work, and I was like dammit now I have to post this.
> 
> So anyway there it was. All the dialogue in the first three dreams is quoted straight from the original work by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Plus I made up some vampire shit at the end.


End file.
